Note: I’m coming close to one year of switching over the paleo food template. Amazingly enough, it’s stuck and really become a life-long mindset. These posts deal with how I got here and how my life has changed.

For years, I didn’t eat breakfast. Because of a second-shift job, my breakfast was usually lunch.

If I was up for breakfast, it was donuts. Lots of donuts. And coffee with cream and sugar. That was it: Sugary, creamy coffee and donuts. One would think I was a cop but I was a journalist (a far worse predicament).

I always heard that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. I never believed it. When my energy levels were low for the day and I required more and more sugar to keep going, I didn’t give a second thought to how I ate. I just ate. That, combined with a stressful job in a stressful city, leads to major problems.

I can’t tell you how many boxes of Pepto Bismol I’ve consumed. The stomach-aches, lethargy, continue struggles with acne and being overweight, all constants for most of my late 20s and early 30s. It was a given that after eating wheat, my throat would seem to close in, making it difficult to breathe and swallow. This would last a few minutes before I would finish eating whatever pasta or burritos I purchased.

A week after starting at the Post in summer 2010, my body was in extreme pain. After checking into the emergency room for fear of appendicitis, the doctors asked me about my high blood pressure and struggles with digestive issues.

Look, I just started a new job after months of unemployment; of course I have high blood pressure! I joked the doctors. I was fine but they told me to think seriously about changing my diet.

I didn’t. I walked home because I didn’t want to pay for a cab. I didn’t have any money and because my new health insurance hadn’t kicked in, it would be some time before I had money again (and that’s worth multiple posts but I’ll leave that for another time).

It wasn’t those issues that began the change. For me, it was staring in the mirror that I realized something: I don’t look the way I feel. When I had energy, felt alive, I saw one version of myself. But what was staring back at me was another version. It was that disconnect that was a trigger for needed change. I wanted my outside to match how I felt on the inside.

The Whole30 challenge was the first time I had to think about eating and how I felt about it. One of the biggest realizations was I wasn’t giving myself the right tools to start and complete the day the way I wanted. Much of my concern was about time. I didn’t have enough time to make breakfast, sit down and eat it, then go about the business of the day. The issue was that I didn’t make time for it. More so, I didn’t want to make time for it.

It was difficult at first. Making breakfast means getting up earlier or accepting that getting up late means time is lost on the back end. That mean going to bed earlier, which meant stopped the caffeine intake earlier the previous day, which meant eating breakfast earlier the previous day.

breakfast of champions

My go-time breakfast meal is the scramble. The dish is super easy, consisting of chicken sausage or bacon, yellow squash and zucchini, broccoli, onions, tomatoes and mushrooms if I have them, with two brown eggs. Some pepper and garlic powder, maybe some turmeric to spice it up.

It leaves me full and very happy. In the midst of marathon training season, the scramble combined with a Clif Builders Bar (not shilling for them but they are fantastic) and a banana or some mixed nuts satisfies all the cravings.

It has come to the point where my body craves breakfast. If I don’t have breakfast, I feel it immediately.

Eating a complete breakfast daily is still a difficult task. Irregularities in the schedule make it difficult to get up at the same time every morning and after a tough shift the night before, the last thing I want to do at 8:45 is get up and chop up onions.

As much as I love the scrambles, I crave a little more variety. Being a creature of habit to the point of rigidity, it’s hard to break out and yet feel like I’ve had “breakfast.” For me, it’s not breakfast if I’m not having eggs in some capacity. Goofy, I know but hey, years of seeing those egg commercials paid off somehow from them!

Let’s talk: How do you spice up your breakfasts? Any ideas on variety?